Critical Essay by Carol McGinnis Kay

In the following essay, Kay argues that Shakespeare manipulated audience expectations in Cymbeline by introducing various characters according to shifting generic tropes: first fairy tale, then romantic comedy, and lastly tragedy.

It is a critical axiom that Shakespeare's opening scenes are crucial in such obvious ways as introducing characters and relationships, establishing atmosphere and setting, positing themes, and so forth.1 In less obvious ways these scenes also manipulate, cajole, and nudge their audiences into certain expectations about the kind of play to follow. One of these more subtle devices is the order of introduction of characters, a dramatic device only occasionally noticed but always powerfully operative on the collective unconscious of an audience. For example, what an enormous difference there...